Planetside2 has been invaded in a recent game update, bringing pumpkins to the countryside. In what SOE has dubbed Nanite of the Living Dead, a horrible accident has happened, leading to these invasive pumpkin samples to take root all across Auraxis, requiring brave warriors to jump in and fight back. Players who take out Space Pumpkins they come across can collect seeds from the smashed bodies, which can be turned in for holiday-themed rewards, such as masks that can only be equipped for the duration of the event. With these invading pumpkins comes a new directive, a new alert, and even some newly named outposts.

Along with the Pumpkin Spice Space Invaders comes a giant amount of bug fixes in this update. The list is fairly huge and the Planetside2 team wants you to know exactly what happens when you report a bug in game. To show the community what bug life cycles are like in Planetside2, SOE put together a video that walks you through a graphic bug where Infiltrators would still have their helms and guns visible after stealthing post-heal. We see how this bug goes from being reported, to being verified, to tested, fixed and eventually pushed live. Personally, I think it should have involved someone chasing around bug dude with a giant flyswatter for additional cheese, but that's just me.

Bug fixes and pumpkin invaders aren't the only things happening in this update. Recently, I wrote about Directives in Planetside2. This update adds in a few adjustments and updates for Directives. Now, you can track your progress through the HUD, by clicking on objectives in the directives screens, which will add a progress tracker on the left side of your HUD, above mission UI. Re-clicking on the objective within the directives screen or directly on the HUD will untrack it. You can have up to six objectives tracked and visible at any time, and any that are completed become automatically untracked. Other updates for the Directives UI include: “Overall Character Progress: Shows the directive points earned by your character and his progress towards completing all directives; Recently Completed Objectives: Displays the last 6 objectives completed by your character; Tracked/Recommended Objectives: This section displays a combination of your tracked and recommended objectives. If you’re tracking 6 objectives, all 6 tracked objectives will show up in this area. If you’re not tracking any objectives, all 6 objectives in this area will be recommended objectives.”

New Directive progress bars have been added to the navigation buttons, and now each objective has new tooltips added in to provide better information. There is also a new Leadership Directive Tree, with Leadership Directives being based on Leadership Ribbons and Squad Beacon spawns. With the new event, Nanite of the Living Dead, a new events category has been added in, which includes a tree for Halloween, available through November 9. Here, players can view the first of the seasonal event Directives. Due to the limited time that the event will be available, meaning a limited time to complete its directives, the tree has lower requirements than other trees.

Speaking of other trees, the Objectives and Force Recon Trees have received updates, as well. Force Recon only received one: Spotter Ribbon has been reduced from ten to five spot assists to be awarded. For the Objectives Tree, players will see that AMS kills now have had their number for require deployed AMS kills reduced across all tiers. Support Ribbons awarded now happen after two events instead of five, and they no longer count Terminal destruction. Now, turrets will not count towards the ribbon and hacking terminals are required for it.

One thing that the community is pretty stoked about is the experience changes that come with this update:

Capturing a control point will now grant 4 ticks of 100 xp each during the capture, plus a bonus 25 for controlling the point for a total of 425 xp for a full point capture.

Guarding a friendly control point at a contested facility will grant 50 xp every 20 seconds.

Kills while in capture range of the capture point will now award a bonus of 100 xp.

Multi-kill bonus is now awarded at 2 kills within one second (down from 3).

Domination bonus is now awarded at 2 consecutive kills against a player without being killed by that player (down from 3).

Nemesis bonus (killing a player who is dominating you) increased to 100 xp.

Deploy bonus renamed to “Transport Assist” in all places where it was referenced (including Directives). These are awarded when a player leaves your vehicle and gets a kill within a couple minutes, provided you are still in the vehicle.

Transport Assist is now equivalent to a kill, 100 xp (up from 50).

Driver assist XP for when the gunner gets kills is now equivalent to a kill, 100 xp (up from 75).

For the full set of changes, be sure to check out the post on the official forums to see what all is in this update!

To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our
PlanetSide 2
Game Page.

About The Author

Vendolyn's been playing MMOs since 1999, although Vendolyn in-game often becomes a long-term shelved alt. When she's not gaming, she's likely marathoning some questionable TV show or babbling about music to no end. She really likes goats.